‹/› API OF THE WEEK

API of the Week: Scribe Software Powers Integration

One of the biggest challenges developers have to deal with relates to managing all the programming interfaces from various systems and solutions. Getting sales and back office systems to communicate effectively with CRM and accounting are just a few of the challenges many organizations perpetually face. Another is getting the on-premises and cloud systems to communicate effectively. It looks like we are going to be in a hybrid world for some time.

Scribe Software is one of the companies looking to help developers make short work of these challenges. To learn more, I conducted an interview with John Joseph, vice president of Marketing,at Scribe. This was done in conjunction with the All About The API conference to be held next week in Las Vegas.

An MIT graduate, John was VP of Product Marketing at Lavastorm Analytics, Endeca (acquired by Oracle), InterSystems, Envox Worldwide (acquired by Syntellect), and Engage prior to joining Scribe.

What APIs do you have available?

Scribe offers an agile, cloud-based integration platform (or integration platform as a service, iPaaS) and we provide a full API for controlling every aspect of the integration platform. Functions are provided for everything you would need to create, deploy, and monitor an integration between cloud and/or on-premises applications. For example, APIs are provided to provision application connectors, create and change data mappings between different systems, monitor running integrations, and more.

What are the benefits/ solutions they help provide?

The APIs give developers the ability to create, deploy, and monitor data flows between two or more systems. Whether you are a developer at a major enterprise, an application provider, or a solution provider from a major SI, data integration is likely a vital part of your project and the Scribe API gives you a single API that you can use to integrate any or all of your applications. You do not have to learn the APIs of individual applications, such as the APIs for several different CRM or ERP systems. Instead, Scribe already has a library of connectors that you can access through the API and you can quickly create custom integrations to multiple systems using the single, easy to use Scribe API. An additional unique capability of our API is that it helps you integrate customized applications, not just vanilla versions, because we expose all the unique functionality (such as custom objects and fields) in your particular application configuration so that’s it’s automatically discovered for you and available for you to integrate. You can, therefore, create highly tailored integrations using the API and do so faster than ever before.

What new business opportunities do they potentially open up for your partners?

These APIs make it possible to create much more powerful applications and to simplify the provisioning and use of those applications. For instance, if you are a provider of a custom application that is used for sales or marketing purposes, your application can automatically integrate with a CRM or ERP system by including calls to our API in your application. Your application, therefore, can present more data to your users and be a much more valuable application. In addition, the provisioning process can be greatly simplified. Perhaps you have a cloud application that a customer/user can request using an online form. By including a few extra questions in the form about the configuration of some of the user’s IT infrastructure, you can automatically create, configure and deploy an integration for your customer as soon as they download the core application without having the integration be a complicated second step.

Why should developers/ decision makers choose to be part of your ecosystem?

Businesses are now competing on the data they collect, analyze, and use. This focus on data has elevated data integration to be a strategic priority for IT organizations and business leaders. Our APIs allow developers and decision makers to accelerate data integration success. If you are a developer at an SI, you can become more strategic to your customers because instead of just configuring systems, you can become a data expert for your customers and become a vital provider of data and information for all parts of their organization. If you are a decision-maker at a large enterprise, you can take advantage of our APIs to gain better control of your cloud and on-premises data.

What are some of the cooler solutions that have been developed using your APIs?

Microsoft has used our API to create “solution templates” for their Power BI analytics/data visualization product. When you go to Microsoft and download their sales dashboard, a wizard-based interface collects a few bits of data from the user that allows Microsoft to create an integration between your CRM system (Salesforce or Dynamics CRM Online) and Power BI. The integration is created, configured and deployed automatically so that the user gets their fully deployed Power BI dashboard immediately and without having to go through a unique integration phase.

Another interesting use of the API is the use by LyntonWeb to create integrations between Microsoft Dynamics CRM and the HubSpot marketing automation system. LyntonWeb uses a HubSpot form to collect certain information about a user’s HubSpot and Dynamics CRM systems and then creates and deploys an integration between the two systems automatically. This allows them to sell integration services without needing to involve a sales person – it can all take place through a self-service interface that the customer accesses from the LyntonWeb website. This helped Lynton Web expand their sales opportunities by reaching new segments of the market with a light-weight, automated sales process.

Customers for our APIs include SIs that want to create a seamless experience for their application users or that want to create packaged integrations that are part of larger applications, SaaS providers that want to embed integration into their applications so that they can make their application more compatible with other complementary applications and, therefore, more valuable to potential prospects, and enterprise developers that want to better integrate cloud and on-premises applications.

Come see the world of APIs at All About The API. Our event will feature a variety of intensive hack-a-thons, in-depth company-focused workshops helping attendees understand the value propositions from key vendors, powerful keynotes, daily and nightly networking opportunities plus an exhibit hall full of companies demonstrating the latest innovations in today’s market place. Every business has to pay attention to the new opportunities they are presenting or potentially be displaced. We hope to see you July 18-21 2016 in Las Vegas!

This is the only event where you can network and see keynotes from these thought leaders: